Under the Sweetwater Rim A Novel [Paperback]

Deep in Indian country, Major Mark Devereaux and his men find a grisly scene: a wagon train savagely attacked, with no survivors. One of the wagons originally with the group is missing; in it is a fortune in gold and Devereaux’s daughter, Mary. The slaughter, Devereaux learns, was not the work of Indians but of a murderous outlaw band. With the stakes rising in a deadly game, the only wild card is Lieutenant Tenadore Brian, who is riding with the missing wagon—against orders. Devereaux knows Brian is a good soldier, but is he good enough to protect a saddlebag full of gold . . . and the life of his daughter?Our foremost storyteller of the American West,Louis L’Amourhas thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world.Chapter One


They had ridden twenty miles since daylight, and at the end of their day had come upon disaster.

Two hundred feet below and half a mile away the wagon train lay scattered on the freshening green of the April grass. Death had come quickly and struck hard, leaving the burned wagons, the stripped and naked bodies, unnaturally white beneath the sun.

The man in the ill-smelling buckskins brought his mount alongside Major Devereaux. "There was fifteen wagons. You can even count 'em from here. The way they're strung out they must've been hit without warnin'. Looks like a few tried to pull out of line, like to form a circle, but they hadn't no time."

"One wagon missing, then."

Plunkett's head swung sharply around. "Now that ain't likely, Major, ain't likely a-tall. No Injun is goin' to haul a wagon away, an' nothin' that big is goin' to slip off unseen. Like you can see, they was caught in the open."

Major Devereaux did not explain. They were drawing nearer as they talked andló